Movie review: Carell and Chalamet are heartbreaking in ‘Beautiful Boy’

Dana Barbuto More Content Now

Tuesday

Oct 16, 2018 at 11:16 AMOct 16, 2018 at 5:01 PM

Without a doubt, the addiction drama “Beautiful Boy” — not the slasher-flick “Halloween” — is the most terrifying movie opening at the multiplex this weekend. Starring Steve Carell (“Foxcatcher”) and Timothee Chalamet (“Call Me by Your Name”), the movie is a chilling and unsettling look at a young man’s plunge into meth addiction (and heroin, pills, pot, etc.) and a devoted father’s efforts to save him. It’s a true and horrifying story so powerful that an uninspired director and clichéd script can’t dilute its impact.

In adapting the twin memoirs of David Sheff and his son, Nic, Belgian director Felix van Groeningen (“The Misfortunates”) oscillates between Nic’s (Chalamet) periods of addiction and recovery. The script, co-written by Luke Davies (“Lion”), is packed with flashbacks to Nic’s idyllic childhood. And in case you dare forget, the walls of their home are plastered with photos of a happy kid. Carell’s David is the dad we all wish we had — cool, caring, realistic and present in his son’s life. There is nothing he wouldn’t do for his boy, including coming to the rescue when he finds Nic passed out in the pouring rain next to a back-alley dumpster. The film offers no answers as to how or why Nic becomes an addict. Like so many others, he just does. It’s a disease. It’s his journey; their journey. And therein lies the most frightening aspect of the movie: As parents, we can do everything seemingly right, but this can happen to any kid at any time. Addiction doesn’t discriminate. That message goes down like a razorblade, and it’ll haunt you far longer than a knife-wielding Michael Myers. As of this writing, I’m four days removed from seeing the film, and I still can’t escape it.

Yet, it could have been better if van Groeningen hadn’t frustratingly stumbled through a litany of drug-drama tropes. We see drugs melting on a spoon and injected into an abscess-infected vein. There are the requisite vein-slapping, overdoses, drug-fueled ecstasy shots, and a heroin-infused love scene. We also get the addict’s “big speech” on coming clean followed by “Heart of Gold” playing as Nic drives along the picturesque Marin County coast. That’s a little too on the nose, as is the case with most of the directorial choices. We know Nic’s a great guy; we don’t need Neil Young to tell us.

Before drugs, Nic was an aspiring writer with six college acceptances and a member of his high school’s water polo team. But when he tries crystal methamphetamine, he feels better than he ever has before. Instead of college, Nic lands in rehab, then a halfway house, and later he’s strung-out and living in the streets. “Relapse is part of the recovery,” a doctor tells David.

Van Groeningen displays an addiction of his own when it comes to injecting heavy doses of metaphor, like a surfing flashback showing father and son being pummeled by rough waters, losing track of each other, until the camera settles in on Nic riding high on the waves. There’s also the lazy plot device of having Dad read from Nic’s diary for no other purpose than moving the story along faster. The reliance on contrivances is signaled almost from the start, when David pulls out a copy of Fitzgerald’s “The Beautiful and Damned.”

The father-and-son relationship is the heart of the film, with Carell and Chalamet delivering performances that are so lived-in, so believable that it exposes the one-dimensionality of the supporting players. Amy Adams plays Nic’s absent mother, Maura Tierney is his step-mother, Kaitlyn Dever is a junkie girlfriend, and Timothy Hutton is a therapist.

The film works best when Carell and Chalamet, both Oscar nominees, share the screen. They possess a natural father-son dynamic. You’ll get chills when Carell, responding to another relapse, says, “This isn’t who we are.” Another scene finds the two in their favorite hipster diner, where a near-rock-bottom Nic begs for $200. It’s so powerful, it might well break you. It certainly broke me.

— Dana Barbuto may be reached at dbarbuto@patriotledger.com or follow her on Twitter @dbarbuto_Ledger.

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